10 Best Software Companies 2018

“Innovate While You Authenticate” – Daon Inc.

CIO Bulletin

December 2018

Irish entrepreneur Dermot Desmond found Daon in 2000 which is headquartered at Reston, Virginia. The privately held software company has pioneered methods to firmly integrate biometric and identity capabilities onto large-scale deployments such as payments verification, digital banking, wealth, insurance, Telcos, and even in securing borders and other critical infrastructure.

Daon is an innovator in developing and deploying biometric authentication and identity assurance solutions worldwide. Today, Daon creates products to help manage identities in six continents, across the full identity lifecycle including onboarding, authentication, and recovery, thus eliminating the threat of security breaches and fraud. Daon delivers solutions needed to empower mission-critical programs which demand the strongest levels of security and identity assurance and serves as a key technology behind leading financial institutions including Visa, Mastercard, USAA, BNP Paribas Wealth Management and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC).

In 2008, Daon received the Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Award for Biometric Product Strategy Leadership. Daon was also recently named as the 2018 Javelin Strategy & Research Mobile Biometrics Platform Awards Leader in 'Functional' Category.

Innovate While You Authenticate – Daon’s formula

Everybody loves convenience. By providing a highly secure method of authentication using identifiers such as fingerprints and other body measurements, Biometrics solves the “Security Vs Convenience” question. However, the reality is biometrics ‘alone’ is not safe. Simply put – They aren’t fool-proof. Biometrics is inherently public. You reveal your eyes whenever you look at things and you leave fingerprints everywhere you go. With voice recognition, someone is recording your voice, and your photos can be easily obtained from many places including Facebook.

The key to biometric security, Daon says, is to ensure the integrity of the process from capture to matching. Doan’s IdentityX Platform removes friction from the authentication process while providing the highest level of security with inherent multi-factor authentication, all while ensuring an improved customer experience. With IdentityX, Doan merges biometrics such as the face, voice, and fingerprint with device-binding, geolocation, and other factors to establish the highest levels of trust. The platform is an Omni-channel approach to biometric authentication, allows users to mix and match security factors of the past (e.g., passwords and tokens) with security factors of today (e.g., voice, fingerprint, facial, behavioral biometrics). All these factors can be used individually or fused together to deliver the level of assurance desired.

Daon’s IdentityX is a FIDO-certified authentication platform that is multi-modal, multi-biometric, multi-factor and multi-vendor. It also supports both match-on-server and match-on-device in a single system. Daon’s multi-factor authentication solution not only diminishes fraud but it also enhances the customer experience by eliminating antiquated passwords and physical tokens. Furthermore, IdentityX is a flexible solution that lets you manage risks based on their severity. With IdentityX, you can enable additional layers of security for high-risk transactions and faster authentication methods for lower-risk transactions. The cost-friendly IdentityX platform is hardware-agnostic and it operates on any mobile device. IdentityX also embraces innovation as it is designed to take advantage of new advancements, including more powerful smart devices and improved biometric modalities. IdentityX can match on-device or on-server – the type of biometric architecture you want to deploy.

Daon has deployed and proven this technology at scale with millions of users across the Banking, Healthcare, Telcos and various other sectors. IdentityX can be used to deploy biometric authentication in a variety of applications worldwide. Daon’s IdentityX won NACUSO’s Next Big Idea competition as well as the Best in Show award from the CUNA Technology Council.

USAA (United Services Automobile Association) selected Daon and its IdentityX platform to power their biometric authentication solution. They chose to use Daon's IdentityX Platform to provide their customers with increased security, convenience, and choice of biometric for their "Quick Login" feature within USAA's mobile application

Union Bank of the Philippines has launched the New EON – a digital banking platform that uses Daon’s IdentityX Platform and its capabilities for mobile biometric authentication in order to improve security and the customer experience

Tom Grissen, the Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Grissen, also the member of the Board of Directors at Daon, oversees all strategic and operational aspects of its business worldwide. Mr. Grissen is also the CEO and Chairman of DTIS (Daon Trusted Identity Services), a joint venture with the AAAE (American Association of Airport Executives). He is a member of the Advisory Committee of a joint venture with SMFG (Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group), providing cloud-based biometric Identity Services across a variety of markets in Japan.

Mr. Grissen was identified by Forbes as “One of the five CEOs who is reinventing Industry through digital”. As a spokesman in the biometrics and identity industry, Mr. Grissen has appeared on national television programs, such as CNBC’s Squawk Box to talk about how biometrics establishes trust online significantly enhancing security while improving the user experience. An alumnus of Michigan University, Mr. Grissen loves golfing, skiing, hiking, sailing, and travel.

“Anyone who turns to Daon receives the same high-quality experience regardless of who they interact with at the company. This is the promise of Daon’s brand.”

“Our vision is to be the world’s leading human authentication platform that allows people across any channel to easily assert and protect their identity.”